Inmate accidentally released by Delco blasts prison conditions, says he’ll turn himself in this week
The inmate mistakenly released from the Delaware County prison claims he repeatedly told prison officials he was not supposed to be let go. While Daniel Rogers also told Broad + Liberty in a Sunday phone interview he intends to turn himself in to the facility this week, he’s fearful the administration will exact retribution against him for embarrassing the facility because of his untimely release — something he contends is their fault, not his.
Readers should keep in mind Broad + Liberty is unable to verify many of the claims Rogers presents in this story. That does not mean the claims are true or untrue, but only that they are not verified.
Rogers first contacted Broad + Liberty by commenting on the original story published about his accidental release. Those comments have been approved, and so are available at that story. When doing so, he provided his email address which allowed us to reach out to him. He verified his identity as Daniel Rogers to our satisfaction.
“When they brought me into intake, when they’re doing the paperwork or booking me in there, the guard, he mentioned something, ‘Oh, you’re only here for a weekend?’ And I said, ‘no.’ I said I was sentenced to twelve to 24 months upstate. And he tells me, ‘No, I only got a weekend here for a DUI.’ I said, ‘Well, I don’t know what’s going on here, but I’m supposed to be going upstate.’”
As previously reported, Rogers was charged with a DUI in May 2023, a case that took more than a year to go to trial. When he was sentenced as part of a guilty plea on a lesser charge, it triggered a parole violation from a previous case in 2021 in which Rogers admits he was dealing drugs. (He says he has been sober since October of last year).
The DUI sentence, after a plea deal was struck, was three days — 72 hours. The new sentencing because of the parole violation was 12-24 months. The prison somehow didn’t know about the longer sentence, and released him.
But Rogers, who has been in and out of the George W. Hill Correctional Facility numerous times over the years, blasted the current state of the prison. He conditioned all of his remarks with the understanding that “I get it: It’s a jail, but the way that [inmates are] treated is unacceptable.”
“They put me into the cell and they brought me, I guess they give you ‘County Blues’ [uniforms] as they call them. And I’m a smaller guy, and the ones that they gave me were double XL. And they had what I [can] only think [are] body lice on them — like bugs. You know what I mean? It is crazy.”
In his first day-and-a-half, he was in an “intake” cell, a temporary holding unit where new inmates are kept until the staff classifies the prisoners and moves them to their new unit.
“There was fifteen of us in one cell,” Rogers said, adding later the cell was only big enough for about ten people. “There’s no toilet in there. We’re sleeping on the floor. There’s roaches. It’s disgusting.” He said the intake cells have benches, but no cots. “If you’re not the first person in there on the bench, you’re sleeping on the floor.”
Rogers also said his food was often stolen by other inmates, and that even if it had not been stolen, the quantities were deficient. That mirrors the findings of a spring visit to the GWHCF by the Pennsylvania Prison Society.
“A child wouldn’t be full off of them meals,” Rogers said in his phone interview.
Rogers’s complaint is similar to others heard by members of the Pennsylvania Prison Society, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving prison conditions. “Eighty-nine percent of the men we asked reported that the prison did not provide them with enough food to eat. Men we interviewed told us ‘they don’t give enough food for a grown man;’ ‘its enough food for a five-year-old;’ ‘not even close,” were comments the Prison Society heard at the time.
Rogers says he found out the prison wanted him back on Friday, August 16, about one week after he was discharged.
“I called my lawyer back and I asked her, I said, ‘Hey, is there any way I could turn myself into a state prison? Is my sentence, is it to go upstate?’ And she said, ‘No, you have to go to the county jail.’ So that kind of just took the wind right out of it, you know what I mean?”
“I’m trying to reach out to a lawyer to see if there’s any other way I could go about this. Because like I said, I’m fearful for the way I’m going to be treated. I feel like I’m going to be put in a hole [solitary confinement].”
The county declined to respond to requests for comment on Rogers’s claims.
Todd Shepherd is Broad + Liberty’s chief investigative reporter. Send him tips at tshepherd@broadandliberty.com, or use his encrypted email at shepherdreports@protonmail.com. @shepherdreports
Everything he has said is 100% percent true. When you are moved to a block you often have to wait an extra week to order the basic necessities. They don’t give females any undergarments such as bras or underwear, often women have to trade other inmates for sanitary napkins or tampons. I have seen inmates trade food for toilet paper. We are given a small bar of antibacterial soap, a travel size container of body wash, a small comb and small deodorant, that does absolutely nothing. One towel and 2 suicide blankets that are replaced with clean ones every few months. One pair of underwear is ridiculous for a female and often they are stolen when sent to laundry. We are treated like animals, and I understand it’s prison but they have no problem handing out tablets for the inmates to pay to watch movies or pay to call home. Anything for the prison to make money.
I read this article and was uncomfortable because everything he has said is true. I spent time in George hill and as a female I really couldn’t understand how it was even legal to treat humans like this. I understand that jail is not supposed to be a resort which I agree. I believe that jail shouldn’t be comfortable because we want people to learn from their stay. But uncomfortable is an understatement. The food can’t even be safe to feed people. Sometimes it’s moldy, bug infested or people ate it before you could get to it. Inmates are so hungry in there that they need to dig through all the used trays to try and get scrapes of food. It’s honestly disheartening. Women only get maybe 7 pads for the entire stay. So most of the women are free bleeding in the only outfit they get for the remainder of their stay. The mental health issues is out of hand. If they are not going to focus on trying to maintain a healthy way to medicate people correctly, then those who have extreme mental illnesses should be taken somewhere that is capable of handling such situation. They FINALLY just put in MAT programs since the state took back over. Mat is medicated assisted treatment for those who suffer with addictions. Before they started these programs people were committing suicide due to the withdrawals from opiates. I was incarcerated when a women jumped off the top tier staircase head first because she needed medical help. The opiate withdrawal is now deadly. Multiple people hung themselves and wouldn’t be checked on for hours. This is all public information also. This jail has been sued so many times but somehow get it to be on the hush hush. Something drastic needs to happen at that jail. The correctional officers are bringing in the drugs that are killing the inmates, they are sleeping with the inmates, and taking advantage of them. Most of the inmates are in there for addiction related charges. Unfortunately the percentage of addicts getting the correct help and staying sober is at an all time low. And they will keep reoffending, but most of them will take things to such extremes to not be sent to this jail because of fear of being treated like animals.
Know someone who unfortunately has experienced the delco prison system….100% true and probably much worse in many circumstances
Why does it take a year to prosecute criminal charges in Delco? And that’s good! Average is 1 1/2 years-2 years! That time waiting is a limbo, but your rights, children, ability to work etc is taken from you. With the amount of false allegations from CYS, do you know how many delco families are ruined in 2 years? most are found innocent or they drop the charges …. BUT 2 years is gone! The emotional damage done in 2 years to 1 family is criminal but the hundreds for years is absolutely abhorrent. This needs to change! Someone needs to be held accountable!